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Staff Handbook Signum University Team Member Guide INTRODUCING SIGNUM UNIVERSITY A. Mission B. Core Values C. History D. Signum University Today PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE A. Introduction B. Legal Stuff WHAT SETS US APART A. Philosophy & Culture B. Organizational Structure C. Online Work Environment D. Internationalism E. Approach to Employee Performance GETTING STARTED AS A TEAM MEMBER A. Team Assignments B. Muster C. Finding Your Way Around the Campus D. Please ask questions! E. Communications Systems F. Attendance G. Confidentiality WHAT SIGNUM VALUES A. Respect and courtesy B. Trustworthiness IMPORTANT CONTACTS SIGNUM GLOSSARY Revised 2/12/18 INTRODUCING SIGNUM UNIVERSITY A. Mission Signum University believes that education should be accessible, dynamic, and affordable. Signum University establishes a completely digital campus that promotes a vibrant academic community for our students and faculty, provides career-growth enrichment for our staff, and pushes the frontiers of online education. B. Core Values Signum University is a values–based academic community. We believe that scrupulous adherence by our board, staff, and faculty to our core values is what makes us exceptional. Education is interactive and informative. Signum University believes a strong learning community is one in which students and professors can grow together in a context of high-quality academics. The University’s virtual campus is designed to make that community a reality, delivering both the relational and academic components of a true liberal arts education. Online education is valuable. Signum University embraces the flexibility and richness of online education. Its learning environment incorporates both traditional and state-of-the-art educational models to provide a dynamic platform that is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. The University continuously invests in this campus to develop Signum’s innovative academic opportunities. Excellent education is affordable. Signum University offers affordable education. It believes everyone who desires to learn should afford to invest in their education. With this belief in mind, the University matches its accessible platform with attainable tuition so that more people might benefit from continued, and even lifelong, education. Rewarding education is accomplished through teamwork. Signum University fosters an amicable and productive relationship between faculty and staff to the enrichment of all. Its philosophy requires that faculty and staff work together with students, using a team-oriented approach focusing on individual responsibility and gifts, to create an exceptional learning experience. Signum also believes that, given this approach, staff and faculty should be rewarded in full for the work they accomplish. Revised 2/12/18 Lasting education is thorough. Signum University helps its students pursue their chosen area of study through online education. As part of this vision, the University teaches students how to interact with academics, personalize their curricula, and communicate meaningfully with peers and colleagues, all with the goal of contributing to their fields of research now and in the future. C. History When he was working as a tenured literature professor, Dr. Corey Olsen decided to experiment with sharing his classroom lectures on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien through a podcast called The Tolkien Professor. The podcast quickly surpassed a million downloads, and its success prompted Dr. Olsen to experiment further by bringing in listeners to discuss Tolkien’s legendarium at length through a seminar- style series on The Silmarillion. As The Tolkien Professor’s audience grew, Dr. Olsen discovered more and more people who had a desire to study speculative literature: fantasy, science fiction, mythology, fairy tales, and so forth. While some colleges and universities offered electives in such subjects, no dedicated programs existed to fulfill the demand. Thus, in 2011, Dr. Olsen offered his first online, graduate-level, for-credit course on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien while continuing to engage audiences through free programs such as “Riddles in the Dark” on The Tolkien Professor podcast and the Mythgard Academy lecture series. To better accommodate the growing number of students seeking a Master of Arts in Language and Literature, Dr. Olsen created Signum University in 2012. Today, the Graduate School at Signum University continues to blaze a trail in online learning through innovative program design and digital campus technologies, with a focus on keeping costs extremely low compared to both traditional universities and other online learning programs. There are now four concentrations, certificate programs, and auditing options in addition to the M. A. degree at the heart of Signum’s Graduate School. Meanwhile, Mythgard Institute remains a separate branch of the University focused on producing free, inventive educational programming for people of all ages through the ongoing Tolkien Professor podcast, Mythgard Academy book discussions, the Mythgard Movie Club, and forays into the virtual world of Middle-earth through Lord of the Rings Online. D. Signum University Today Signum University offers a Master’s degree in Language and Literature, with optional concentrations in Tolkien Studies, Imaginative Literature, Germanic Philology, and Classic Literature. Instruction and interaction is entirely online, pioneering a number of techniques to make online learning more interactive. The Revised 2/12/18 model consists of lectures, which may be live or pre-recorded; online live preceptor sessions, with a low student-to-teacher ratio for interaction and discussion; and student-driven discussion boards. Most class requirements can be completed by students asynchronously, making it an ideal model for individuals with [busy schedules]. Signum also offers certificate programs and auditing options for those not seeking a Master’s degree, a variety of fun programming that’s free and open to the public via Mythgard Institute at Signum University, and children’s programs through Signum for Kids. PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE A. Introduction The purpose of this guide is to give you a crash course in who we are at Signum University, how we do things, and how you can be a part of it all. We hope you come away with a sense of what we expect from you, what you can expect from us, and where to go for further information. As an online institution, we feel it's best to make these policies available to you via the internet so that you can know for sure you're using the most recent version. There are other individuals connected with Signum University, such as volunteers, for whom the information contained in this handbook will be useful as they learn about Signum, but for whom specific employment-related passages will not apply. B. Legal Stuff We hope this Team Member Guide will be of help to you as you learn your way around Signum. It is intended to provide you with general information about our policies, culture, and expectations; it is not intended to be all-inclusive. All organizations are subject to change, and Signum reserves the right to change, revoke, or replace any or all of its policies and procedures at any time, with or without notice, and reserves the right to make final decisions about the interpretation and application of all policies. We will make every effort to notify you of any changes in policy, but the final responsibility for knowing and abiding by Signum University's policies, in this guide or elsewhere, rests with you. If you have questions about specific policies, speak with your Team Leader or the Employment Team. The most common model for employment in the US is at-will employment, meaning that both the employee and the employer are free to terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any reason or no reason, and with or without notice. At Signum, we don't feel that at-will employment is normally in the best interest of either employee or employer. We value the security and continuity of a contract, when practical. A contract protects you from termination of your employment without notice or on a whim. It also provides Signum with the opportunity to Revised 2/12/18 ensure continuity in operations by allowing adequate time to prepare for an employee’s resignation. If you have been provided with a contract, signed by you and the University President, the terms of your employment are specified within it, including the length of the notice needed to terminate your employment on either side and the causes for which the University may terminate your employment. If you have no such contract, your employment remains at will and subject to the conditions outlined above. The information in this handbook supersede all previous handbooks. By seeking or continuing employment with Signum, you agree to abide by all University policies, including the ones contained in this handbook. WHAT SETS US APART A. Philosophy & Culture You have joined what we call the “University Team”, that is to say the group of people who enable Signum to function. The University Team comprises both employees and volunteers, and includes within it Tactical Staff, Faculty and what, in other institutions, would be referred to as “Administration” or “Management”. At Signum we see these as artificial divisions and ourselves as a single community. Signum is a 100% distributed institution. We own no real-estate or physical premises and never intend to. People work in their own homes and we communicate via the internet, both with each other and with students. We work very flexibly and non-hierarchically. People are organized into teams for organizational clarity but these are not restrictive structures. Someone can work on multiple teams according to their particular skills and interests. Moreover, the same person might be a leader on one team and an ordinary team member on another. Signum has a very distinctive culture. We resist the corporatization of education and ban titles like manager or director. We see ourselves as a single University Team rather than the competitive factions - Faculty, Staff and Administration - which most universities are divided into.
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